A new dark matter detector has gone online today, using a rather clever method of searching for signs of rare interactions between dark and regular matter. The tool uses a liquid that's kept poised on the edge of boiling, such that even the tiniest bit of additional energy—say, caused by the impact of a dark matter particle—will create a bubble of vapor in the detector.
Neat idea.
__________________ Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position.
But certainty is an absurd one.
Interesting article on skin color. It's bone deep!
Quote:
By about 1.2 million years ago, humans ancestors had lost their fur and were able to sweat more efficiently to avoid overheating.
Without fur, however, our skin was exposed to the strong equatorial sun. The skin pigment melanin, which is responsible for most of the color of our skin. Melanin is a terrific sunscreen, and darkly pigmented skin became a substitute for fur.
But as our ancestors migrated away from the Earth’s equator, which has lots of UV exposure, it became less and less beneficial for those populations to have so much pigmentation as protection from the sun. Why? For answers, we must look at vitamin D.
“Vitamin D is produced at high levels in the skin when it is exposed to ultraviolet light from the sun,” says Dr. Michael Holick, a professor of medicine, physiology and biophysics at Boston University Medical Center. He is a leader in vitamin D nutrition, and among countless other works, published the book “The Vitamin D Solution.”
According to Holick, back in the 1930s to 1950s, it was thought that the main reason for skin pigmentation was to prevent having too much vitamin D being produced in the skin. Too much vitamin D leads to vitamin D intoxication, which can result in death. However, in the early 1980s, Holick and his colleagues published a paper that disproved that theory.
“It turns out that Mother Nature was quite clever, in that any excessive exposure to sunlight destroys any excess vitamin D produced in the skin,” Holick explained.
Vitamin D is produced in skin that’s exposed to the sun, and it’s involved in helping the intestines absorb calcium, which is a critical nutrient in our bones. However, heavily pigmented skin reduces a person’s ability to produce vitamin D in the skin “probably by 90-95%,” according to Holick, meaning they were more likely to be deficient in the vitamin.
As our ancestors migrated to areas away from the equator, with lower UV radiation, pigmentation became a problem. For example, Holick explained, a person from Africa who is very darkly pigmented has a sun protection factor of around 30. That person would have to be out in the sun at least 10 to 15 times longer to produce the same amount of vitamin D as a lightly-pigmented person from Europe.
Vitamin D is critical for healthy bones, which have always been essential to human survival. Not only are healthy bones important to movement and holding our bodies upright, but they are essential for reproduction. A pregnant mother who is vitamin D deficient can have a baby born with infantile rickets syndrome, a disease that leads to severe bone abnormalities. If the mother remains vitamin D deficient, she is also calcium-deficient. If breast milk is the main food source for the infant, the infant will not receive enough calcium to build healthy bones.
The National Research Council, which gave the country canola and the atomic clock, will now be taking its scientific cues from Canadian industry as part of a makeover of the country’s flagship research labs.
The overhaul, quietly begun two years ago and formally unveiled Tuesday, means the 97-year-old NRC will focus on a clutch of large-scale, business-driven research projects at the expense of the basic science that was once at its core. The Conservative government says it wants to leverage the NRC’s world-class resources – everything from wind tunnels and ice tanks to high-powered microscopes – to help reverse the country’s chronically lagging innovation performance.
But a new development makes the situation appear to be far worse. In a stunning announcement, the National Research Council—the Canadian scientific research and development agency—has now said that they will only perform research that has “social or economic gain”.
This is not a joke. I wish it were.
John MacDougal, President of the NRC, literally said, “Scientific discovery is not valuable unless it has commercial value”. Gary Goodyear, the Canadian Minister of State for Science and Technology, also stated “There is [sic] only two reasons why we do science and technology. First is to create knowledge ... second is to use that knowledge for social and economic benefit. Unfortunately, all too often the knowledge gained is opportunity lost.
Over the past few years, the Canadian government has been lurching into antiscience territory. For example, they’ve been muzzling scientists, essentially censoring them from talking about their research. Scientists have fought back against this, though from what I hear with limited success.
But a new development makes the situation appear to be far worse. In a stunning announcement, the National Research Council—the Canadian scientific research and development agency—has now said that they will only perform research that has “social or economic gain”.
My goal is to not die for at least another hundred years, since apparently the first human who will live past 200 years is already alive today. Maybe there will be some crazy warp drive breakthrough by then
Is there more info somewhere on this 200 year old life for a human?
__________________
But living an honest life - for that you need the truth. That's the other thing I learned that day, that the truth, however shocking or uncomfortable, leads to liberation and dignity. -Ricky Gervais
Industry is quite capable of and willing to fund research that will generate profit in the short-term, but of course aren't going to say no to the government paying academic researchers to do it for them. My view is that industry can fund profit-driven research while government funds the basic research that doesn't generate immediate benefits but can lead to the game-changing advances down the road.
Canadian firm's Quantum Computing solution being purchased by NASA / Google
"A $15m computer that uses "quantum physics" effects to boost its speed is to be installed at a Nasa facility.
It will be shared by Google, Nasa, and other scientists, providing access to a machine said to be up to 3,600 times faster than conventional computers."
"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology."
-- Carl Sagan
The Following User Says Thank You to Old Yeller For This Useful Post:
